I'm sorry I have been so low on posts this week. It's just that after working my third holiday weekend in two months I was in danger of writing posts about bad customer behavior or how I almost got run over by a car and a Christmas tree in the same hour. My happy just was not at the forefront of my creative mojo, so I retreated into work and my knitting and lots and lots of Charmed episodes.
But it's time for this week's progress report on operation Rutabaga 2012, and I have actually done some work (most of it today). It is hard to work on the planning when I feel like I am operating in a vacuum. Chris is still in school and so has not really been available for strategic planning sessions and plus, as the bride, it really is up to me to do most of the heavy lifting. Overall I have felt very supported in this process by everyone involved, but at the end of the day the real decision making is up to me, and that's a little scary.
It's no secret that we are trying to do this as cheap as possible. The area that is making this difficult currently is the reception. What do you serve for food? Is there anyone who could help out? How many people are we having to feed and what are the expectations? Since the wedding is on a Friday night the timing has worked out that we really do need to serve some sort of dinner. I am not really into big elaborate meals, and I have no intention of hiring a caterer. I just don't have that kind of funding. So today I sat down with a notebook and did some free association and word mapping exercises that I used to do when I got stuck working on research.
I started with the main concept. No, not "cheap", but rather the feel of the wedding. It's a small country church and based on my dress and current flower ideas (more on that later), I'm aiming for "storybook". So, what food seems like it would be at a small country wedding in a fairy tale. For some reason the first word that popped into my head was "chutney", which really makes no sense. But from there I moved to cheese and once I got on the idea of cheese plates it all sort of spiraled from there. When I was a kid my parents would do family movie nights that involved picnicking on the living room floor munching on nice cheese, crackers, grapes, and apple slices. Those have always been some of my favorite meals, and in my mind they are tied to stories like Pirates of Penzance (my original pirate loves -- go watch the video, I'll be here when you come back) or The Jungle Book. It just makes sense to take that memory and build a menu around it, because in the end that's really what this is going to be -- a reflection of the past 23 years of my life, honoring that, and celebrating the beginning of a new chapter.
And, as has become my mantra when I'm stuck making decisions, it's my wedding. Even if I don't get to eat the food myself I still have to pay for it. If people don't like it they can do something different when they get married (that sounds really mean, but sometimes you just have to stop considering everyone else or nothing will get done).
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My aunt did an hors d'ouvres reception (but sadly did not have enough food for everyone in reality. There was a McDonald's run at one point). Other than the kinks, it was really glamorous. It can be done at less expense, if you buy things in bulk and have people help out. Different cheeses and crackers, meats, fruits, maye some mini quiches (which you can get frozen in assortments at GFS or big box stores). You may even make a few spreads yourself (for instance, they have an AMAZING cheese plate at this restaurant near my house with some sort of apricot cream cheese spread they make. It is to die for.)
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